Malacca & the Southern Peninsula

Malacca was founded around 1400 by Parameswara, a prince from Sumatra, and within decades became the greatest port of Southeast Asia, controlling the strait between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. Its rulers converted to Islam, sent envoys to Ming China — the fleets of Zheng He called here — and built the court culture, the laws and the Malay literary tradition that later sultanates copied. The legends of the warrior Hang Tuah belong to this age.

The Portuguese took the city in 1511 and built the fortress of A Famosa; the Dutch captured it in 1641 and ruled until the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 handed it to Britain, which joined it to Penang and Singapore in the Straits Settlements. By then its trade had drifted away to Singapore. The Malacca royal line, meanwhile, had fled south and founded the sultanate of Johor, which ruled both sides of the strait and the Riau islands for centuries.

Modern Johor was shaped in the 19th century by its temenggongs, who invited Chinese planters to open pepper and gambier estates under the kangchu system. Abu Bakar moved the capital to Johor Bahru in 1866, became sultan in 1886, built a Western-style administration and kept Johor independent until it accepted a British adviser in 1914. The causeway to Singapore opened in 1924, and in 1942 Japanese troops advanced down Johor to cross it. Since independence Johor has grown into an industrial state tied closely to Singapore's economy.

Malacca's past shows in its communities. The Baba-Nyonya, or Peranakan Chinese, descend from traders who settled and adopted Malay dress, cooking and speech; their townhouses, beadwork and porcelain fill the old streets. The Kristang community of Portuguese descent lives in the Portuguese Settlement by the sea and keeps a Portuguese-based creole language, and the small Chitty community are Hindus of Tamil descent whose ancestors married locally. Malacca's Malay kampungs keep houses with ornate tiled front stairs.

Johor is a strongly Malay state with a proud, assertive royal house; the sultan is a prominent public figure, and Johor Malay forms the basis of standard Malay. Its Chinese towns, from Johor Bahru to Muar and Batu Pahat, keep temple festivals such as Johor Bahru's Chingay parade of the old temple, held around Chinese New Year. Zapin, a dance brought by Arab traders, and the ghazal music of Johor are local art forms.

Everyday manners are relaxed, and the link with Singapore is felt everywhere — in shared family ties, shopping habits and the daily commute across the water.

Johor is one of the most populous states, with about 4 million people. The Johor Bahru metropolitan area, including Iskandar Puteri and Pasir Gudang, holds well over a million, with Muar, Batu Pahat, Kluang and Segamat as the other main towns. Malacca state has about 1 million people, most in and around Malacca City.

The Johor Bahru–Singapore crossing is among the busiest land borders in the world, used by hundreds of thousands of people a day, many of them Malaysians who work in Singapore and earn in its stronger currency. Johor's economy mixes manufacturing, petrochemicals at Pengerang, ports, palm oil, pineapples and a growing data-centre industry, while Iskandar Malaysia's development zone has brought new townships and theme parks. Malacca relies heavily on tourism, manufacturing and services.

Days in Johor Bahru are ruled by the causeway queue, which starts before dawn. In Malacca life slows outside the weekend rush. The cost of living for those who do not earn in Singapore dollars, and traffic at the border, are constant talking points.

Malacca is known for Nyonya cooking, which blends Chinese techniques with Malay spices: ayam pongteh, chicken braised with fermented soybean paste and potatoes, itek tim, a sour duck soup, and Nyonya laksa, noodles in a spicy coconut curry. The Kristang community makes curry debal, a fiery "devil's curry". Street food includes chicken rice balls, rice shaped into small rounds and served with poached chicken, and satay celup, skewers dipped into a communal pot of peanut sauce. Cendol here is sweetened with gula Melaka, the dark palm sugar named after the city, and pineapple tarts and Nyonya kuih — small steamed cakes in bright colours — fill the bakeries.

Johor has its own dishes. Laksa Johor is served with spaghetti in a thick fish and coconut gravy, a habit traced to the royal household; mee rebus is yellow noodles in a spicy gravy thickened with mashed tubers; and Muar is famous for otak-otak, a spiced fish paste grilled in leaves, and for mee bandung, noodles in a rich gravy of dried shrimps and spices. Johor Bahru's kacang pool, a bean stew eaten with bread, shows the state's Arab influence. Pineapples from around Pontian and seafood from the coasts round out the menu.

Malacca City's UNESCO-listed core is compact. Around Dutch Square stand the Stadthuys, Christ Church and the clock tower; above them, St Paul's Hill has the ruined church and the Porta de Santiago, the last gate of A Famosa, and the wooden Malacca Sultanate Palace replica sits below. Across the river, Jonker Street runs through Chinatown to the Baba & Nyonya Heritage Museum on Heeren Street, the Cheng Hoon Teng temple and the Kampung Kling Mosque, and the riverside walkways lead past murals and old warehouses. Bukit China's hillside cemetery and the Portuguese Settlement lie on the edges of town.

In Johor, Johor Bahru has the Sultan Abu Bakar State Mosque overlooking the strait, the old palace of Istana Besar and its restored heritage street, with Legoland Malaysia in Iskandar Puteri to the west. Tanjung Piai, at the southernmost tip of mainland Asia, protects mangroves on a boardwalk. Muar keeps colonial-era buildings along its river.

The east coast has the beaches of Desaru and its resort coast, and Mersing is the jetty town for the islands of Rawa, Besar and Sibu. Inland, the Endau-Rompin National Park, shared with Pahang, has lowland rainforest, rivers and waterfalls such as Upeh Guling, while Gunung Ledang rises on the Malacca border.